职场发展高级12:21motivation

The Happy Secret to Better Work

更好工作的快乐秘诀

积极心理学专家肖恩·阿克用一连串爆笑段子颠覆了「先成功、再快乐」的传统逻辑。他用研究证明:大脑在积极状态下工作效率、销售能力和创造力都会大幅提升,所以真正的顺序是「先快乐、后成功」。演讲还给出每天两分钟、坚持 21 天就能重塑大脑的实用方法,是练习职场英语与管理思维的高能量材料。

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台词(76 句)

00:15

When I was seven years old and my sister was just five years old, we were playing on top of a bunk bed. I was two years older than my sister at the time -- I mean, I'm two years older than her now --

我七岁、妹妹才五岁那年,我们在上下铺的顶层玩耍。那时我比她大两岁——我是说,现在也比她大两岁——

00:26

but at the time it meant she had to do everything that I wanted to do, and I wanted to play war. So we were up on top of our bunk beds.

但在当时,这意味着我想干什么她就得干什么,而我想玩打仗。于是我们爬到了双层床的最上层。

00:33

And on one side of the bunk bed, I had put out all of my G.I. Joe soldiers and weaponry. And on the other side were all my sister's My Little Ponies ready for a cavalry charge.

床的一边,我摆开了我全部的「特种部队」士兵和武器;另一边,则是妹妹的一群「小马宝莉」,严阵以待,准备发起骑兵冲锋。

00:42

There are differing accounts of what actually happened that afternoon, but since my sister is not here with us today, let me tell you the true story -- (Laughter) which is my sister's a little on the clumsy side.

关于那天下午到底发生了什么,大家说法不一。不过既然我妹妹今天不在场,就让我来告诉你们「真实版本」——(笑声)那就是,我妹妹这人有点笨手笨脚。

00:53

Somehow, without any help or push from her older brother at all, Amy disappeared off of the top of the bunk bed and landed with this crash on the floor.

不知怎么的,在完全没有哥哥的任何帮忙或推搡下,艾米就从双层床的顶层「消失」了,「砰」的一声摔在了地板上。

01:01

I nervously peered over the side of the bed to see what had befallen my fallen sister and saw that she had landed painfully on her hands and knees on all fours on the ground.

我紧张地从床边探出头,想看看摔下去的妹妹遭遇了什么,只见她四肢着地,手和膝盖重重地磕在地上,疼得不行。

01:09

I was nervous because my parents had charged me with making sure that my sister and I played as safely and as quietly as possible.

我之所以紧张,是因为爸妈叮嘱过我:一定要保证我和妹妹玩得尽量安全、尽量安静。

01:16

And seeing as how I had accidentally broken Amy's arm just one week before -- (Laughter) (Laughter ends) heroically pushing her out of the way of an oncoming imaginary sniper bullet, (Laughter) for which I have yet to be thanked, I was trying as hard as I could --

何况就在一周前,我才「不小心」弄断了艾米的胳膊——(笑声)(笑声止)当时我可是英勇地把她推开,躲开了一颗迎面射来的、想象中的狙击子弹,(笑声)为此我至今还没得到过一句感谢——所以这次我拼命想表现好——

01:37

she didn't even see it coming -- I was trying hard to be on my best behavior. And I saw my sister's face, this wail of pain and suffering and surprise threatening to erupt from her mouth and wake my parents from the long winter's nap for which they had settled.

那颗子弹她可是完全没看见——我拼命想表现得规规矩矩。这时我看到妹妹的脸,一声混杂着疼痛、痛苦和惊愕的哭喊眼看就要从她嘴里爆发出来,把正在冬日长眠的爸妈吵醒。

01:50

So I did the only thing my frantic seven year-old brain could think to do to avert this tragedy. And if you have children, you've seen this hundreds of times.

于是,为了避免这场「悲剧」,我七岁的小脑袋在慌乱中想出了唯一的办法。如果你有孩子,这一幕你一定见过无数次。

01:57

I said, "Amy, wait. Don't cry. Did you see how you landed? No human lands on all fours like that. Amy, I think this means you're a unicorn."

我说:「艾米,等等,别哭。你看到自己是怎么落地的吗?没有哪个人类能像那样四肢着地。艾米,我觉得这说明——你其实是一只独角兽。」

02:06

(Laughter) Now, that was cheating, because there was nothing she would want more than not to be Amy the hurt five year-old little sister, but Amy the special unicorn.

(笑声)其实这招是「耍赖」,因为对她来说,没有什么比这更求之不得的了:她不想当那个摔疼了的五岁小妹妹艾米,而想当那个特别的独角兽艾米。

02:17

Of course, this option was open to her brain at no point in the past. And you could see how my poor, manipulated sister faced conflict, as her little brain attempted to devote resources to feeling the pain and suffering and surprise she just experienced,

当然,这个选项在过去的任何一刻都不曾出现在她的脑海里。你能看到我那可怜的、被我「操纵」的妹妹陷入了内心的挣扎:她的小脑袋一边想调动资源去感受刚才那阵疼痛、痛苦和惊愕,

02:29

or contemplating her new-found identity as a unicorn. And the latter won. Instead of crying or ceasing our play, instead of waking my parents, with all the negative consequences for me, a smile spread across her face and she scrambled back up onto the bunk bed

一边又在琢磨自己刚刚获得的「独角兽」新身份。结果后者赢了。她没有哭,没有停下游戏,也没有吵醒爸妈——那会给我带来一堆麻烦——她脸上反而绽开笑容,手脚并用地又爬回了双层床上,

02:42

with all the grace of a baby unicorn -- (Laughter) with one broken leg. What we stumbled across at this tender age of just five and seven -- we had no idea at the time -- was was going be at the vanguard of a scientific revolution

带着一只小独角兽的全部优雅——(笑声)只不过瘸了一条腿。我们在五岁和七岁这么小的年纪偶然撞见的东西——当时我们浑然不觉——竟会站在一场科学革命的最前沿,

02:56

occurring two decades later in the way that we look at the human brain. We had stumbled across something called positive psychology, which is the reason I'm here today and the reason that I wake up every morning.

这场革命在二十年后发生,彻底改变了我们看待人脑的方式。我们无意中撞见的东西叫作「积极心理学」,它正是我今天站在这里的原因,也是我每天早晨醒来的动力。

03:07

When I started talking about this research outside of academia, with companies and schools, the first thing they said to never do is to start with a graph.

当我开始走出学术圈,向企业和学校讲这项研究时,他们叮嘱我的第一件绝不能做的事,就是「别一上来就放图表」。

03:14

The first thing I want to do is start with a graph. This graph looks boring, but it is the reason I get excited and wake up every morning.

而我最想做的第一件事,偏偏就是先放一张图表。这张图看起来很无聊,但它正是我每天早晨兴奋着醒来的原因。

03:21

And this graph doesn't even mean anything; it's fake data. What we found is -- (Laughter) If I got this data studying you, I would be thrilled, because there's a trend there, and that means that I can get published, which is all that really matters.

而且这张图其实什么都说明不了——它是假数据。我们发现——(笑声)如果我研究你们能得到这样的数据,我会欣喜若狂,因为它有一条明显的趋势,意味着我能发论文,而这才是真正重要的事。

03:37

There is one weird red dot above the curve, there's one weirdo in the room -- I know who you are, I saw you earlier -- that's no problem.

曲线上方有一个奇怪的红点,就好比房间里有个「怪咖」——我知道那是谁,我刚才就看见你了——没关系。

03:46

That's no problem, as most of you know, because I can just delete that dot. I can delete that dot because that's clearly a measurement error.

没关系,你们大多数人都知道,因为我可以直接把那个点删掉。我能删掉它,是因为那显然是个「测量误差」。

03:53

And we know that's a measurement error because it's messing up my data. (Laughter) So one of the first things we teach people in economics, statistics, business and psychology courses is how, in a statistically valid way, do we eliminate the weirdos.

而我们之所以断定它是测量误差,就是因为它把我的数据搞乱了。(笑声)所以在经济学、统计学、商科和心理学课上,我们最先教人的一件事,就是如何用「统计上站得住脚」的方式,把这些怪咖剔除掉。

04:06

How do we eliminate the outliers so we can find the line of best fit? Which is fantastic if I'm trying to find out how many Advil the average person should be taking -- two.

怎样剔除这些异常值,好让我们找到最佳拟合线?如果我想弄清楚一般人该吃几粒止痛药,这招妙极了——答案是两粒。

04:14

But if I'm interested in your potential, or for happiness or productivity or energy or creativity, we're creating the cult of the average with science.

可要是我关心的是你的潜力,或是幸福感、生产力、活力、创造力,那我们其实是在用科学制造一种「对平均值的崇拜」。

04:22

If I asked a question like, "How fast can a child learn how to read in a classroom?" scientists change the answer to "How fast does the average child learn how to read in that classroom?"

如果我问「一个孩子在课堂上能多快学会阅读?」科学家会把这个问题偷换成「一个『普通』孩子在那间教室里能多快学会阅读?」

04:31

and we tailor the class towards the average. If you fall below the average, then psychologists get thrilled, because that means you're depressed or have a disorder, or hopefully both.

然后我们按照这个「平均水平」来设计课程。如果你低于平均值,心理学家会乐坏了,因为那说明你抑郁了、有障碍了,最好是两者兼具。

04:41

We're hoping for both because our business model is, if you come into a therapy session with one problem, we want to make sure you leave knowing you have ten, so you keep coming back.

我们巴不得两者兼具,因为我们的「商业模式」是这样的:你带着一个问题来做心理咨询,我们得让你走的时候知道自己有十个问题,这样你才会一直回来。

04:49

We'll go back into your childhood if necessary, but eventually we want to make you normal again. But normal is merely average. And positive psychology posits that if we study what is merely average, we will remain merely average.

必要的话我们还会追溯到你的童年,但最终我们只想把你「变回正常」。可所谓「正常」,不过就是「平均」而已。而积极心理学主张:如果我们只研究平庸的东西,那我们就只能永远平庸。

05:01

Then instead of deleting those positive outliers, what I intentionally do is come into a population like this one and say, why?

所以,与其删掉那些「正向异常值」,我特意做的,是走进你们这样一群人当中,然后发问:为什么?

05:08

Why are some of you high above the curve in terms of intellectual, athletic, musical ability, creativity, energy levels, resiliency in the face of challenge, sense of humor?

为什么你们当中有些人,在智力、运动、音乐才能、创造力、精力、面对挑战的韧性、幽默感这些方面,都远远高出曲线之上?

05:16

Whatever it is, instead of deleting you, what I want to do is study you. Because maybe we can glean information, not just how to move people up to the average, but move the entire average up in our companies and schools worldwide.

不管是哪一方面,我想做的不是删掉你,而是研究你。因为也许我们能从中获得启示,不只是把人「提升到平均」,而是把全世界企业和学校里的整个平均水平都往上抬。

05:27

The reason this graph is important to me is, on the news, the majority of the information is not positive. in fact it's negative.

这张图对我很重要,原因在于:新闻里的信息绝大多数都不是正面的,事实上是负面的。

05:33

Most of it's about murder, corruption, diseases, natural disasters. And very quickly, my brain starts to think that's the accurate ratio of negative to positive in the world.

大部分内容都是凶杀、腐败、疾病、自然灾害。于是很快,我的大脑就开始以为:世界上负面和正面的比例本来就是这样。

05:42

This creates "the medical school syndrome." During the first year of medical training, as you read through a list of all the symptoms and diseases, suddenly you realize you have all of them.

这就造成了所谓的「医学生综合征」:在医学训练的第一年,当你把所有症状和疾病的清单读一遍时,你会突然发现——这些病你全都有。

05:52

(Laughter) I have a brother in-law named Bobo, which is a whole other story. Bobo married Amy the unicorn. Bobo called me on the phone -- (Laughter) from Yale Medical School, and Bobo said, "Shawn, I have leprosy."

(笑声)我有个连襟叫波波,这又是另一段故事了。波波娶了「独角兽」艾米。有一次波波从耶鲁医学院给我打电话——(笑声)他说:「肖恩,我得了麻风病。」

06:06

(Laughter) Which, even at Yale, is extraordinarily rare. But I had no idea how to console poor Bobo because he had just gotten over an entire week of menopause.

(笑声)麻风病即便在耶鲁也极其罕见。可我完全不知道该怎么安慰可怜的波波,因为他上周才刚刚熬过整整一周的「更年期」。

06:16

(Laughter) We're finding it's not necessarily the reality that shapes us, but the lens through which your brain views the world that shapes your reality.

(笑声)我们发现:塑造我们的未必是现实本身,而是你的大脑看待世界所用的那副「镜片」,正是它塑造了你的现实。

06:24

And if we can change the lens, not only can we change your happiness, we can change every single educational and business outcome at the same time.

而如果我们能换掉这副镜片,那不仅能改变你的幸福感,还能同时改变每一项教育成果和商业成果。

06:31

I applied to Harvard on a dare. I didn't expect to get in, and my family had no money for college. When I got a military scholarship two weeks later, they let me go.

我当年申请哈佛,纯粹是被人激了一句。我压根没指望能进,而且家里也没钱供我读大学。两周后我拿到了一份军方奖学金,家里这才让我去。

06:38

Something that wasn't even a possibility became a reality. I assumed everyone there would see it as a privilege as well, that they'd be excited to be there.

原本连可能性都算不上的事,竟成了现实。我以为那里的每个人也都会把这当作一种荣幸,会因为身处其中而兴奋不已。

06:46

Even in a classroom full of people smarter than you, I felt you'd be happy just to be in that classroom. But what I found is, while some people experience that, when I graduated after my four years and then spent the next eight years living in the dorms with the students --

哪怕坐在一间满是比你聪明的人的教室里,我觉得光是能待在那间教室里就该心满意足了。但我发现,虽然有些人确实是这种感受,可当我读完四年毕业、又在接下来的八年里和学生们同住宿舍时——

06:59

Harvard asked me to; I wasn't that guy. (Laughter) I was an officer to counsel students through the difficult four years.

是哈佛请我去的,我可不是那种赖着不走的人。(笑声)我担任辅导员,陪学生们度过艰难的四年大学生活。

07:06

And in my research and my teaching, I found that these students, no matter how happy they were with their original success of getting into the school, two weeks later their brains were focused, not on the privilege of being there, nor on their philosophy or physics,

在我的研究和教学中我发现:这些学生,无论当初考进学校时有多开心,两周之后,他们的注意力都不再放在「身处哈佛的荣幸」上,也不在哲学或物理上,

07:19

but on the competition, the workload, the hassles, stresses, complaints. When I first went in there, I walked into the freshmen dining hall, which is where my friends from Waco, Texas, which is where I grew up -- I know some of you know this.

而是放在竞争、课业负担、各种麻烦、压力和抱怨上。我刚进去那会儿,走进新生食堂——我在得克萨斯州韦科长大,我那些老家的朋友——我知道你们有些人清楚这地方。

07:31

When they'd visit, they'd look around, and say, "This dining hall looks like something out of Hogwart's." It does, because that was Hogwart's and that's Harvard.

他们来看我时,会环顾四周说:「这食堂简直像是从《哈利·波特》里搬出来的霍格沃茨。」还真是,因为那儿就是霍格沃茨的取景地,那就是哈佛。

07:38

And when they see this, they say, "Why do you waste your time studying happiness at Harvard? What does a Harvard student possibly have to be unhappy about?"

他们看到这一切,会说:「你干嘛把时间浪费在研究哈佛学生的幸福上?一个哈佛学生还能有什么好不开心的?」

07:46

Embedded within that question is the key to understanding the science of happiness. Because what that question assumes is that our external world is predictive of our happiness levels, when in reality, if I know everything about your external world, I can only predict 10% of your long-term happiness.

而理解幸福科学的钥匙,恰恰就藏在这个问题里。因为这个问题的隐含假设是:我们的外部世界能预测我们的幸福水平。可现实是,哪怕我对你的外部世界了如指掌,也只能预测你长期幸福感的 10%。

08:00

90 percent of your long-term happiness is predicted not by the external world, but by the way your brain processes the world. And if we change it, if we change our formula for happiness and success, we can change the way that we can then affect reality.

你长期幸福感的 90%,不是由外部世界决定,而是由你的大脑处理世界的方式决定。如果我们改变它,如果我们改写「幸福与成功」的公式,就能改变我们进而影响现实的方式。

08:13

What we found is that only 25% of job successes are predicted by IQ, 75 percent of job successes are predicted by your optimism levels, your social support and your ability to see stress as a challenge instead of as a threat.

我们发现:工作上的成功,只有 25% 能由智商预测;而 75% 取决于你的乐观程度、你的社会支持,以及你把压力看作挑战而非威胁的能力。

08:25

I talked to a New England boarding school, probably the most prestigious one, and they said, "We already know that. So every year, instead of just teaching our students, we have a wellness week.

我曾和新英格兰一所寄宿学校交流,大概是那儿最负盛名的一所。他们说:「这个我们早就知道了。所以我们每年除了正常上课,还会办一个『身心健康周』。

08:34

And we're so excited. Monday night we have the world's leading expert will speak about adolescent depression. Tuesday night it's school violence and bullying.

我们特别兴奋。周一晚上,请来世界顶尖专家讲青少年抑郁;周二晚上讲校园暴力和霸凌;

08:42

Wednesday night is eating disorders. Thursday night is illicit drug use. And Friday night we're trying to decide between risky sex or happiness."

周三晚上讲饮食失调;周四晚上讲非法吸毒;周五晚上嘛,我们还在纠结,要讲『危险性行为』,还是讲『幸福』。」

08:49

(Laughter) I said, "That's most people's Friday nights." (Laughter) (Applause) Which I'm glad you liked, but they did not like that at all.

(笑声)我说:「对大多数人来说,周五晚上就是这么过的呀。」(笑声)(掌声)你们喜欢这个梗我很高兴,可他们一点都不觉得好笑。

09:01

Silence on the phone. And into the silence, I said, "I'd be happy to speak at your school, but that's not a wellness week, that's a sickness week.

电话那头一片沉默。在这沉默中我说:「我很乐意去你们学校演讲,但你们那不是『健康周』,那是『疾病周』。

09:08

You've outlined all the negative things that can happen, but not talked about the positive." The absence of disease is not health.

你们把所有可能发生的坏事都列了个遍,却只字未提正面的东西。」——没有疾病,并不等于健康。

09:14

Here's how we get to health: We need to reverse the formula for happiness and success. In the last three years, I've traveled to 45 countries, working with schools and companies in the midst of an economic downturn.

那我们该怎样走向健康?我们需要把「幸福与成功」的公式反过来。过去三年里,我走访了 45 个国家,在经济下行的大环境下,与各地的学校和企业合作。

09:24

And I found that most companies and schools follow a formula for success, which is this: If I work harder, I'll be more successful.

我发现,大多数企业和学校奉行的成功公式是这样的:只要我更努力,我就会更成功。

09:31

And if I'm more successful, then I'll be happier. That undergirds most of our parenting and managing styles, the way that we motivate our behavior.

而只要我更成功,我就会更快乐。这套逻辑支撑着我们大部分的育儿方式、管理方式,以及我们激励自身行为的方式。

09:38

And the problem is it's scientifically broken and backwards for two reasons. Every time your brain has a success, you just changed the goalpost of what success looked like.

问题在于,从科学上讲,这套逻辑是失灵的、是本末倒置的,原因有两个。第一,每当你的大脑取得一次成功,你就顺手把「成功」的标准往后挪了一格。

09:46

You got good grades, now you have to get better grades, you got into a good school and after you get into a better one, you got a good job, now you have to get a better job, you hit your sales target, we're going to change it.

你考了好成绩,现在得考更好的;你进了好学校,进去之后又要进更好的;你找了份好工作,现在得找份更好的;你完成了销售目标,那我们就把目标再提高。

09:57

And if happiness is on the opposite side of success, your brain never gets there. We've pushed happiness over the cognitive horizon, as a society.

而如果幸福被摆在了成功的另一头,你的大脑就永远到不了那里。作为一个社会,我们把幸福一路推到了认知的地平线之外。

10:04

And that's because we think we have to be successful, then we'll be happier. But our brains work in the opposite order. If you can raise somebody's level of positivity in the present, then their brain experiences what we now call a happiness advantage,

这是因为我们以为必须先成功、然后才会更快乐。可我们的大脑运作的顺序恰恰相反。如果你能把一个人当下的积极水平提上去,他的大脑就会享受到我们如今所说的「快乐优势」,

10:16

which is your brain at positive performs significantly better than at negative, neutral or stressed. Your intelligence rises, your creativity rises, your energy levels rise.

也就是说,大脑在积极状态下的表现,会远远好于消极、中性或压力状态。你的智力提升,创造力提升,精力也随之提升。

10:24

In fact, we've found that every single business outcome improves. Your brain at positive is 31% more productive than your brain at negative, neutral or stressed.

事实上,我们发现每一项商业指标都会改善。大脑在积极状态下的生产力,比在消极、中性或压力状态下高出 31%。

10:32

You're 37% better at sales. Doctors are 19 percent faster, more accurate at coming up with the correct diagnosis when positive instead of negative, neutral or stressed.

你的销售能力会提升 37%。医生在积极状态下(而非消极、中性或压力状态下)做出正确诊断,速度快 19%,也更准确。

10:40

Which means we can reverse the formula. If we can find a way of becoming positive in the present, then our brains work even more successfully as we're able to work harder, faster and more intelligently.

这意味着我们可以把公式反过来。只要我们能找到办法,让自己在当下变得积极,大脑的运作就会更加高效,我们也就能更努力、更快、更聪明地工作。

10:50

We need to be able to reverse this formula so we can start to see what our brains are actually capable of. Because dopamine, which floods into your system when you're positive, has two functions.

我们必须学会把这个公式反过来,才能开始看到大脑真正的能耐。因为当你处于积极状态时,大量涌入体内的多巴胺,有两个作用。

10:59

Not only does it make you happier, it turns on all of the learning centers in your brain allowing you to adapt to the world in a different way.

它不仅让你更快乐,还会开启大脑里所有的学习中枢,让你以一种全新的方式去适应这个世界。

11:06

We've found there are ways that you can train your brain to be able to become more positive. In just a two-minute span of time done for 21 days in a row, we can actually rewire your brain, allowing your brain to actually work more optimistically and more successfully.

我们发现,有一些方法能训练你的大脑变得更积极。每天只需两分钟,连续坚持 21 天,我们就真的能重塑你的大脑,让它以更乐观、更高效的方式运转。

11:19

We've done these things in research now in every company that I've worked with, getting them to write down three new things that they're grateful for for 21 days in a row, three new things each day.

我们已经在合作过的每一家企业里做过这类研究:让员工连续 21 天,每天写下三件让自己心存感激的新事,每天三件、不重复。

11:29

And at the end of that, their brain starts to retain a pattern of scanning the world not for the negative, but for the positive first.

到最后,他们的大脑开始养成一种模式:扫描世界时,不再先盯着负面的东西,而是先去搜寻正面的东西。

11:35

Journaling about one positive experience you've had over the past 24 hours allows your brain to relive it. Exercise teaches your brain that your behavior matters.

写日记记录过去 24 小时里一件积极的经历,能让你的大脑重新体验一次这份美好。运动则会告诉你的大脑:你的行为是有意义的。

11:43

We find that meditation allows your brain to get over the cultural ADHD that we've been creating by trying to do multiple tasks at once and allows our brains to focus on the task at hand.

我们还发现,冥想能帮大脑克服那种「文化性多动症」——我们总想同时处理多项任务,结果注意力涣散——它让大脑重新专注于手头的这一件事。

11:52

And finally, random acts of kindness are conscious acts of kindness. We get people, when they open up their inbox, to write one positive email praising or thanking somebody in their support network.

最后,「随机善举」其实是「有意识的善举」。我们让人们在打开邮箱时,写一封正面的邮件,去赞美或感谢自己支持网络里的某个人。

12:02

And by doing these activities and by training your brain just like we train our bodies, what we've found is we can reverse the formula for happiness and success, and in doing so, not only create ripples of positivity, but a real revolution.

通过做这些练习,像锻炼身体一样锻炼大脑,我们发现:我们真的能把「幸福与成功」的公式反过来。而这样做,不仅会激起一圈圈积极的涟漪,更会掀起一场真正的革命。

12:13

Thank you very much. (Applause)

非常感谢。(掌声)